Commission and FAA launch transatlantic
action plan to cut emissions

Jacques Barrot, European Commission
Vice-President responsible for transport, and Marion Blakey, Administrator
of the United States Federal Aviation Administration, today launched - in
the presence of aircraft industry representatives - a transatlantic
emission-reduction initiative called AIRE.

"The future of the aviation industry depends on its ability to combat climate
change through innovation and greater efficiency, and this initiative will
enable us to speed up the application of technologies and procedures having a
direct impact on greenhouse gas emissions," Jacques Barrot said.

"Following the major success of our open skies agreement, this is further
proof that the European Union and the United States benefit from working
together in the aviation sector. We both want a sky open to aircraft but not to
emissions," he added.

"The Commission is ensuring constant environmental awareness in the aviation
sector. Our AIRE initiative is only one part of our three measures to make
aviation greener. It supplements our proposal to include aviation in the
emission rights trading system and the Clean Sky initiative launched by the
Commission last week to support the development of the next generation of clean
aircraft," the Commission Vice-President concluded.

The joint initiative AIRE (Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce
Emissions) fits in with the cooperation protocol signed by the Commission and
the FAA to coordinate two major programmes on air traffic control infrastructure
modernisation, SESAR[1] in
Europe and NEXTGEN[2] in the
United States.

AIRE will make it possible to speed up the application of new technologies
and operational procedures which will have a direct impact in the short and
medium term on greenhouse gas emissions. The measures include "smooth" or
"reduced engine" approaches (which will enable noise and exhaust gas emissions
to be reduced during landing), experiments with which carried out at Stockholm,
Louisville and Atlanta have shown substantial savings in fuel and CO2
and NOx emissions.

AIRE will be based on "gate to gate" test campaigns and experiments, which
will make it possible to assess the new measures' environmental benefits and
their operational and technical feasibility. Accordingly, the Commission and the
FAA have ensured that this initiative is being undertaken with the close
involvement of partners from the industry, such as the aircraft manufacturers
Airbus and Boeing, the operators Air France-KLM, SAS, Delta and FEDEX, and
providers of aviation navigation services such as IAA (Ireland), LFV (Sweden)
and NAV (Portugal). In addition to being an agreement between two leading public
institutions, AIRE is therefore a genuine partnership which brings together
aviation players with the common aim of environmental conservation.

The initial partnership will be expanded as best practices and new
technologies spread in Europe and the United States.

For the Commission, the air transport sustainable development strategy is
based on a consistent three-pillared approach:

1. air traffic management, by means of SESAR or more generally the Single
European Sky and initiatives such as AIRE;

2. technological development, through programmes such as Clean Sky or
studies on the use of biofuels;

3. economic mechanisms for trading emission rights.

AIRE is the first large-scale environmental initiative bringing together
aviation players from both sides of the Atlantic.